Porglish

Examples

Among Brazilian Americans and others

Many of these examples can also apply to other Lusophone diasporas as Portuguese speakers raised in an English-speaking environment, and English speakers learning Portuguese, or any otherwise native speakers of one language used to the other.

Note: Those with ** are generally accepted in colloquial Brazilian Portuguese as this language variety is more open to receive loanwords than its European standard counterpart. Deletar, escanear and resetar are even very unlikely to be deemed as unacceptable words in the standard norm of Brazil as much more recently used bullying, instead of pre-existing Portuguese words as bulimento (bullying), bulir (to bully) and bulidor (bully), has been promoted from slang and now it is accepted in the variety's educated norm, to the dismay of some language purists.

• Aplicação – application (instead of Port. formulário)
• Apontamento – appointment (instead of Port. horário, encontro)
• Attachar or atachar – to attach (instead of Port. anexar)
• Bizado or bisado – busy (instead of Port. ocupado)
• Bootar or butar – to boot, usually computers (instead of Port. iniciar)
• Chattear – to chat (instead of Port. conversar, bater papo – the Portuguese homophone chatear has the meaning of to annoy, to pester someone)
• Dar um suit – to sue (instead of Port. processar)
• Deletar** – to delete (instead of Port. excluir, apagar, suprimir, delir – while originally a Latin word as deletare, its popularity revived together with the adoption of the English usage)
• Dropar – to drop (instead of Port. derrubar, descartar, descer, largar)
• Escanear** or scanear** – to scan (instead of Port. digitalizar, varrer, ler, examinar)
• Escore – score (instead of Port. pontuação)
• Espreiar or spreiar – to spray (instead of Port. pulverizar, borrifar)
• Eslaidar or slidar – to slide (instead of Port. escorregar, deslizar, resvalar)
• Estartar or startar – to start (instead of Port. iniciar, inicializar)
• Frizar or frisar – to freeze (instead of Port. congelar – the correct use of frisar has the meaning of to emphasize; so it can be the correct Portuguese usage depending on context)
• Hoovar – to vacuum, to hoover (UK) (instead of Port. aspirar o pó, passar o aspirador de pó)
• Inicializar** – to initialize (instead of Port. iniciar)
• Mopear – to mop (UK) (instead of Port. esfregar, usar o esfregão)
• Ordenar – to place an order (instead of Port. encomendar, pedir, fazer um pedido, requisitar – the correct use of ordenar has the meaning of to command, to ordain; so it can be the correct Portuguese usage depending on context)
• Parkear or parquear – to park (instead of Port. estacionar)
• Performar - to perform (instead of Port. desempenhar, realizar)
• Plotar – to plot (instead of Port. traçar, imprimir mapa ou gráfico)
• Printar – to print out (instead of Port. imprimir); also: to make a screen capture (derived from the computer key "Print Screen")
• Realizar – to realize/realise (instead of Port. perceber, compreender – the correct use of realizar has the meaning of perform, accomplish, achieve; so it can be the correct Portuguese usage depending on context)
• Resetar** – to reset (instead of Port. reiniciar, reinicializar)
• Ser suposto a/estar suposto a** – to be supposed to (also Port. dever, dever de – while very rare and sounding odd to most Portuguese speakers, it is a correct Portuguese usage)
• Upar** or uppar – to up (on a level; slang term used for RPG games by Brazilian players, instead of Port. evoluir) or to upload (instead of rarely used Port. subir – the opposite of baixar, the literal translation of download)
• Vacuumar or vequiar – to vacuum (instead of Port. aspirar o pó, passar o aspirador de pó)